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Disability Discrimination: Prisoners

A prisoner started
experiencing blackouts, weakness and difficulty walking. Despite his written
medical requests, he asserts, he was not properly examined for six months.
Before he was eventually diagnosed with pernicious anemia, the defendants
allegedly failed to use medication to slow the disease. He was paralyzed
from the waist down and his condition continued to deteriorate. He complained
that he was denied assignment to the Transitional Care Unit, and that he
was placed in administrative segregation without a wheelchair or handicap
access, forcing him to crawl and to eat meals on the floor. He was also
denied someone to push his wheelchair, a handicapped-accessible cell, medically
prescribed physical therapy, preventative treatment, examination by an
outside specialist, wheelchair accessories, and exemption from activities
requiring exposure to cold. He claimed that lack of accommodations caused
him to miss meals, fall several times in his cell, be placed on strip-cell
status, and be unable to move around his cell without hitting the toilet
or walls.

Individual capacity
disability discrimination claims against two prison officials were dismissed
because they could not be sued in their individual capacities under either
the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Rehabilitation Act. Claims against
doctors and a correctional medical service, as they related to medical
treatment, could not form the basis of disability discrimination claims
under either statute. Claims for injunctive relief, however, could continue,
as could damage claims against the state and the correctional department,
as some of the alleged conduct could have violated the Eighth and Fourteenth
Amendments. Dinkins
v. Correctional Medical Services, #12-2127, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis
3454 (8th Cir.).

Electronic Control Weapons: Stun Mode

A jail detainee
claimed that jailers used excessive force against him when they moved him
to a different cell after he refused orders to take down a yellow sheet
of paper covering the light in his cell. The prisoner refused to cooperate
with the move, lying face down on his bunk and refusing to get up. He was
forcibly removed and handcuffed and placed on a bunk. When the officers
tried to remove the handcuffs, he allegedly resisted, which he later denied.
The officers then allegedly smashed his head into the concrete bunk, which
they later denied. A Taser was then applied to the detainee's back in stun
mode for five seconds. He declined the attentions of a nurse. The trial
court noted the case law that held that it was reasonable to use force
against an inmate who refused to comply with orders but concluded that
the issue in the case was "whether [the] defendants' response to plaintiff's
obstinance was reasonable under the circumstances or whether it was excessive
and was intended to cause [the] plaintiff harm." The court also concluded
that, because a jury could find that the defendants had acted with malice,
qualified immunity was not available.

The jury returned
a verdict for the defendants, which was upheld on appeal. The Fourteenth
Amendment governed the plaintiff's claims as a pretrial detainee. The jury
was adequately instructed on the elements of that claim. The jury instructions
properly required them to find, in order to impose liability, that the
defendants knew that their use of force posed a risk of harm to the plaintiff,
but that they recklessly disregarded his safety.Kingsley
v. Hendrickson, #12-3639, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 3972 (7th Cir.).

False Imprisonment

A U.S. citizen working
at a construction site was arrested along with other employees and the
contractor, after the contractor allegedly sold drugs to an undercover
officer. When arrested, the plaintiff had a wallet with his driver's license,
Social Security card, debit card, and health insurance card. His place
of birth was listed as in New Jersey. Despite this, an officer, believing
that he had given false information, contacted immigration authorities,
who issued an immigration detainer, The detainee later sued, claiming that
he was improperly detained without probable cause for over 48 hours, without
notice of the basis of his detention or an opportunity to contest it. A
federal appeals court reversed the dismissal of his false imprisonment
claim. An immigration detainer is permissive, and did not compel the defendants
to detain him. They were free to disregard it, and therefore could not
use as a defense that their own decision or policy did not cause the alleged
deprivation of constitutional rights. Galarza
v. Szalczyk, #12-3991, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 4000 (3rd Cir.).

Force-Feeding of Prisoners

Detainees at Guantanamo
Bay who were cleared for release but remain detained there went on a hunger
strike demanding their release, and were force fed. A federal appeals court
held that they had the right to challenge the conditions of their confinement
in a habeas corpus proceeding, and that their claims were not barred by
the Military Commissions Act. The prisoners, however, failed to establish
that they were entitled to a preliminary injunction against the forced
feeding, since it served legitimate penological interests in preserving
the lives of the detainees and maintaining security and discipline. They
failed to show a likelihood that the force-feeding was unconstitutional.
The court also ruled that the protections of the Religious Freedom Restoration
Act did not apply to the detainees. As nonresident aliens, they were not
protected persons under the statute. Aamer
v. Obama, #13-5223, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 2513 (D.C. Cir.).

Medical Care

****Editor's Case Alert****

A prisoner at a
federal facility contracted Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus,
(MRSA), a staph infection resistant to certain antibiotics, there and was
hospitalized for over 40 days. He suffered permanent damage to his heart
and lungs. He sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act, asserting that the
prison's negligence caused his injuries. After a bench trial, the court
held that he had not proven that he had contracted the infection from contact
with a fellow employee in the prison laundry or from sloppy procedures
in handling infected prison laundry. The federal appeals court upheld this
ruling as to those two theories or liability, but found that the trial
court should have considered a broader theory contained in the plaintiff's
complaint--that the prison was negligent in failing to adhere to its MRSA-containment
policies. Buechel
v. United States, #13-2278, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 4260 (7th Cir.).

While the trial
court held that the plaintiff prisoner had voluntarily, and with informed
consent, signed a form refusing to have a consultation with a retinal specialist,
the appeals court reversed summary judgment for the defendants. It ruled
that there were genuine issues of material fact as to the validity as well
as the scope of the refusal form. Further proceedings were ordered as to
whether any of the individual defendants acted with deliberate indifference
on failing to provide him with medical treatment for his retinopathy. Kuhne
v. FL Dept. of Corrections, #12-13387, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 2460,
24 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 1013 (11th Cir.).

Prisoner Assault: By Officer

A federal jury awarded
a total of $451,000 in damages to a man serving a life sentence for murdering
seven employees of a Brown's Chicken restaurant. The award was based on
his claim that a county jail deputy beat him in 2002 a few hours after
he was placed in a maximum security wing at the jail. The beating left
him with facial fractures requiring surgery during which two metal plates
were inserted into his face. The deputy was subsequently fired. The deputy
claimed that the beating was in self-defense and he was acquitted of battery
charges. The award consisted of $225,000 in compensatory damages on the
excessive force claim, and $226,000 in punitive damages. Degorski
v. Wilson, #1:04-cv-03367, (N.D. Ill., March 7, 2014).

Religion

****Editor's Case Alert****

A Native American
prisoner serving a life sentence for murdering his daughter claimed that
correctional officials violated his constitutional and statutory rights
to religious freedom by denying him access to the prison's sweatlodge.
Prison officials claimed that the cost of providing the necessary security
to accompany him from the special protective unit he was housed in to the
sweatlodge was "unduly burdensome." A federal appeals court disagreed,
finding that the burden to his exercise of religion was high, given that
he was granted no access of any ki9nd, ever, to a religious exercise, and
the cost to the prison left undefined by the record and thus presumably
low." Under these circumstances, the appeals court concluded, a reasonable
fact finder could find a violation of the prisoner's statutory right to
religious freedom. Yellowbear,
Jr. v. Lampert, #12-8048, (10th Cir.).

A Muslim prisoner
challenged a prison policy that conditioned accommodation of participation
of Ramadan (fasting, special meals at night, etc.) on possession of a "physical
indicia" of faith, such as a Quran, Kufi, prayer rug, or written religious
material obtained from the prison chaplain's office. Those who did not
have these items were deemed insincere in their religious beliefs and barred
from participating in Ramadan. The plaintiff was classified as insincere.
A federal appeals court overturned summary judgment on the basis of qualified
immunity for the defendants, despite the fact that the policy had later
been abandoned. The defendants failed to show that the policy, as it was
applied to the plaintiff, did not violate the First Amendment. Qualified
immunity was not available, as the rights at issue were clearly established.
The defendants also failed to meet a burden of showing that it was "absolutely
clear" that they would not later reinstate the same policy. Wall
v. Wade, #13-6355, 741 F.3d 492 (4th Cir. 2014).

Segregation: Administrative

The plaintiff was
confined for many years to a security housing unit (SHU) for the purpose
of protecting other prisoners from him and his gang underlings, as a result
of his prior gang activities. He was ordered released from the SHU in 2006
when he claimed that he was no longer an active gang member. He was returned
to the SHU subsequently on the basis of allegations of further gang activity.
The trial court later issued orders in 2009 and 2011 claiming that his
return to SHU violated its 2006 order, and again ordering him released.
A federal appeals court found that the later two orders were an abuse of
discretion, ignoring developments after 2006, and improperly impeded prison
management.Griffin
v. Gomez, #09-16744, 741 F.3d 10 (9th Cir. 2014).